... An official in the Merkel government told me that the administration was completely perplexed, at first. Then, a few days later, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, held a news conference in Moscow. Bringing up Lisa’s story, he cast doubt on the official version of events. There was no way, he argued, that Lisa left home voluntarily. Germany, he suggested, was “covering up reality in a politically correct manner for the sake of domestic politics.” Two days later, RT ran a segment reporting that despite all the official denials, the case was “not so simple.” The Russian Embassy called Steltner and asked to meet, he told me. The German foreign ministry informed him that this was now a diplomatic issue.

The whole affair suddenly appeared a lot less mystifying. A realization took hold in the foreign ministry, the intelligence services and the Chancellery: Germany had been hit.

Officials in Germany and at NATO headquarters in Brussels view the Lisa case, as it is now known, as an early strike in a new information war Russia is waging against the West. In the months that followed, politicians perceived by the Russian government as hostile to its interests would find themselves caught up in media storms that, in their broad contours, resembled the one that gathered around Merkel. They often involved conspiracy theories and outright falsehoods — sometimes with a tenuous connection to fact, as in the Lisa case, sometimes with no connection at all — amplified until they broke through into domestic politics. In other cases, they simply helped promote nationalist, far-left or far-right views that put pressure on the political center. What the efforts had in common was their agents: a loose network of Russian-government-run or -financed media outlets and apparently coordinated social-media accounts.

After RT and Sputnik gave platforms to politicians behind the British vote to leave the European Union, like Nigel Farage, a committee of the British Parliament released a report warning that foreign governments may have tried to interfere with the referendum. ...

... But all of this paled in comparison with the role that Russian information networks are suspected to have played in the American presidential election of 2016. In early January, two weeks before Donald J. Trump took office, American intelligence officials released a declassified version of a report — prepared jointly by the Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation and National Security Agency — titled “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections.” It detailed what an Obama-era Pentagon intelligence official, Michael Vickers, described in an interview in June with NBC News as “the political equivalent of 9/11.” “Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election,” the authors wrote. “Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton and harm her electability and potential presidency.” According to the report, “Putin and the Russian government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump.” ...

Blame it on the Russians. That’s kind of a Hillary thing to do.
You can’t discredit something that has no credit to begin with.
Throw the article in the round file. It is written by a gossip stringer. Politicking is all about influence. I didn’t see any effective Russian influence, but I have seen a lot of effective Jewish influence.

Blame it on the Russians. That’s kind of a Hillary thing to do.
You can’t discredit something that has no credit to begin with.
Throw the article in the round file. It is written by a gossip stringer. Politicking is all about influence. I didn’t see any effective Russian influence, but I have seen a lot of effective Jewish influence.

Seems preferable to me to getting in bed with the Russians, as Trump is doing.

Blame it on the Russians. That’s kind of a Hillary thing to do.
You can’t discredit something that has no credit to begin with.
Throw the article in the round file. It is written by a gossip stringer. Politicking is all about influence. I didn’t see any effective Russian influence, but I have seen a lot of effective Jewish influence.

Seems preferable to me to getting in bed with the Russians, as Trunp is doing.

Of course, you would. Russia is not a communist country anymore. Doesn’t fit your political ambitions.

The outlook for America getting along with Russia looks better than for example, Israel. If you add Palestine prison as part of Israel. Russia is just as Christian as Israel and more Christian than the United States. Retirement age for women is 50 and 55 for men. Russia is twice the size of the USA with one-third the people. Russia is the world’s leading producer in many minerals and has vast oil, gas, coal and timber reserves. Sort of like the United States when we started growing and industrializing.

Russia is technically a democracy. Not yet a good democracy by a long shot. Of course, we should help Russia along the road to a better democracy. Putin biggest problem is not the US. It is Russia’s millennials. They are creating a different country from what the Soviet Union ever was or could have been. It will be interesting to watch. I am all for Trump working with the new Russia.

... An official in the Merkel government told me that the administration was completely perplexed, at first. Then, a few days later, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, held a news conference in Moscow. Bringing up Lisa’s story, he cast doubt on the official version of events. There was no way, he argued, that Lisa left home voluntarily. Germany, he suggested, was “covering up reality in a politically correct manner for the sake of domestic politics.” Two days later, RT ran a segment reporting that despite all the official denials, the case was “not so simple.” The Russian Embassy called Steltner and asked to meet, he told me. The German foreign ministry informed him that this was now a diplomatic issue.

The whole affair suddenly appeared a lot less mystifying. A realization took hold in the foreign ministry, the intelligence services and the Chancellery: Germany had been hit.

Officials in Germany and at NATO headquarters in Brussels view the Lisa case, as it is now known, as an early strike in a new information war Russia is waging against the West. In the months that followed, politicians perceived by the Russian government as hostile to its interests would find themselves caught up in media storms that, in their broad contours, resembled the one that gathered around Merkel. They often involved conspiracy theories and outright falsehoods — sometimes with a tenuous connection to fact, as in the Lisa case, sometimes with no connection at all — amplified until they broke through into domestic politics. In other cases, they simply helped promote nationalist, far-left or far-right views that put pressure on the political center. What the efforts had in common was their agents: a loose network of Russian-government-run or -financed media outlets and apparently coordinated social-media accounts.

After RT and Sputnik gave platforms to politicians behind the British vote to leave the European Union, like Nigel Farage, a committee of the British Parliament released a report warning that foreign governments may have tried to interfere with the referendum. ...

... But all of this paled in comparison with the role that Russian information networks are suspected to have played in the American presidential election of 2016. In early January, two weeks before Donald J. Trump took office, American intelligence officials released a declassified version of a report — prepared jointly by the Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation and National Security Agency — titled “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections.” It detailed what an Obama-era Pentagon intelligence official, Michael Vickers, described in an interview in June with NBC News as “the political equivalent of 9/11.” “Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election,” the authors wrote. “Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton and harm her electability and potential presidency.” According to the report, “Putin and the Russian government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump.” ...

Blame it on the Russians. That’s kind of a Hillary thing to do.
You can’t discredit something that has no credit to begin with.
Throw the article in the round file. It is written by a gossip stringer. Politicking is all about influence. I didn’t see any effective Russian influence, but I have seen a lot of effective Jewish influence.

Seems preferable to me to getting in bed with the Russians, as Trunp is doing.

Of course, you would. Russia is not a communist country anymore. Doesn’t fit your political ambitions.

The outlook for America getting along with Russia looks better than for example, Israel. If you add Palestine prison as part of Israel. Russia is just as Christian as Israel and more Christian than the United States. Retirement age for women is 50 and 55 for men. Russia is twice the size of the USA with one-third the people. Russia is the world’s leading producer in many minerals and has vast oil, gas, coal and timber reserves. Sort of like the United States when we started growing and industrializing.

Russia is technically a democracy. Not yet a good democracy by a long shot. Of course, we should help Russia along the road to a better democracy. Putin biggest problem is not the US. It is Russia’s millennials. They are creating a different country from what the Soviet Union ever was or could have been. It will be interesting to watch. I am all for Trump working with the new Russia.

No, it’s not a communist country any more. It is now a fascist one. No, Putin’s problem is not the US. Putin’s advantage is the US with a complete fool in the White House. He knew what he was doing when he helped get Trump elected. He knew he’d have a puppet. Trump will never work with the new Russia. What would the Russia’s millennials want with an abject fool once Putin has used him, unless they can think of more ways to dupe him, which would be too easy.

Lois

Signature

[color=red“Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.”
― George Eliot, Silas Marner[/color]

Blame it on the Russians. That’s kind of a Hillary thing to do.
You can’t discredit something that has no credit to begin with.
Throw the article in the round file. It is written by a gossip stringer. Politicking is all about influence. I didn’t see any effective Russian influence, but I have seen a lot of effective Jewish influence.

No, it was a Trump thing to do. He “won” the election, remember? Hillary didn’t have to blame anyone for anything except for election interference—and she didn’t have to do that either. Other people did it.

... An official in the Merkel government told me that the administration was completely perplexed, at first. Then, a few days later, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, held a news conference in Moscow. Bringing up Lisa’s story, he cast doubt on the official version of events. There was no way, he argued, that Lisa left home voluntarily. Germany, he suggested, was “covering up reality in a politically correct manner for the sake of domestic politics.” Two days later, RT ran a segment reporting that despite all the official denials, the case was “not so simple.” The Russian Embassy called Steltner and asked to meet, he told me. The German foreign ministry informed him that this was now a diplomatic issue.
oil

The whole affair suddenly appeared a lot less mystifying. A realization took hold in the foreign ministry, the intelligence services and the Chancellery: Germany had been hit. ...

Frighteningly though there are pockets of waking up and resistance overall our coddled populace is a oblivious as ever.
The future has become a truly terrifying place.

Do you count yourself as one of the coddled populace?

Nope, when I think coddled I think oblivious and wrapped in a security blanket.
Me, I got my eyes open and my mind processing incoming information and if I had to put a label on me,
how about one of the impotent terrified bystanders watching this insanity unfold.
Or how about the little boy, tugging at his parents pant legs: but the king has no cloths.
Oh hush now you silly boy and watch the parade.

Blame it on the Russians. That’s kind of a Hillary thing to do.
You can’t discredit something that has no credit to begin with.
Throw the article in the round file. It is written by a gossip stringer. Politicking is all about influence. I didn’t see any effective Russian influence, but I have seen a lot of effective Jewish influence.

No, it was a Trump thing to do. He “won” the election, remember? Hillary didn’t have to blame anyone for anything except for election interference—and she didn’t have to do that either. Other people did it.

L

American’s asleep at the wheel allowed the Oligarch monstrosity to go down.